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I stand frozen, every muscle corded tight, looking down at my brother’s mutilated body. The word corpse hits me hard and fast, knocking the breath from my lungs.
His black suit is shredded, dried blood staining the expensive material from slashes across his chest. Throat sliced so deeply, his head is nearly severed from his body. As I take in the carnage, the only thought circling my mind is how he would hate to be seen like this. His face bruised. That perfect suit, ruined.
“Don’t touch anything,” Carson instructs. And it’s like his order finally gives me permission to move.
I drop down and feel for a pulse. His skin is cold. Not ice-cold, the way you’d assume death would feel. But rather a chilly, air-conditioned temperature. As if he’s become just another inanimate object in the room. His glassy blue eyes stare wide and vacant right into mine.
“I said, not to touch anything.” Carson says something else into his phone, then steps beside me. “Mother fucker. Julian was just a slimy piece of business shit, after all. I guess this proves he’s not the perp.”
In two moves, I’m off the floor and have Carson jacked up by his shirt collar. I back him against the wall where my fist drives into his face. “This proves it?” I shout, sending another punch into his stomach. He tries to double over, but I keep him held upright. “All this time, you could’ve been investigating the real killer, but you had it in for my brother. Satisfied now?”
He sucks in a breath and manages to knock my arm away. He takes a swing and lands a strong right hook to my jaw. My vision explodes with white. His arms reach around my middle and he drives me backward.
My feet
fail to push back against his momentum, and I fall, leaving a huffing Carson looking down at me. “Yeah. He’s cleared. But what about you?” he grates. “There’s still a matter of the evidence. Rope—just like yours—being used at a damn crime scene.”
Pushing to my knees, I deliver a punch to his gut. Then land another to his face when he buckles. I look straight into his eyes as I get up and grab his neck. “You think I killed my own brother? You twisted fuck.” I punch him in the stomach. “I was with Sadie last night. Then I was with your ass all day. What about you? What’s your alibi?”
He coughs, wiping blood from his lip with the back of his hand. A slow smile curls his mouth. “If I was going to get rid of him, I wouldn’t do it now. Not when I was so close to nailing him.”
I shake my head, anger ripping through every muscle. My knuckles throb, my hand fisted so tight…just looking for the next place to stick Carson. Shoving him back, I say, “You’re not worth it. Get out.”
“Not happening. This is a closed crime scene now.” He motions around the room. “Don’t you think it’s just a little too convenient that the owner of The Lair winds up dead? What about the missing footage from last night and this morning? Why would the UNSUB need to knock off Julian? What’s your brother’s part in all this?” His gaze sharpens on me. “Just because he’s not the perp, doesn’t mean he’s not connected.”
“His death could have nothing to do with this case at all.” Given the number of enemies my brother’s made over the years, that’s not a complete stretch.
His eyes widen. “Really? I admit he doesn’t fit the victimology. Unless he’s hiding a vag beneath those slacks, he’s not really the UNSUB’s type. But he’s linked to this, Colton. You know it. Give up what you’re hiding.”
As I turn my back to him, he clocks me hard across the back of my head. Blind fury rips loose, blocking the pain, and I unleash a growl as I tackle him to the floor. I wail on his face until a loud beeping breaks through the adrenaline haze.
I stumble off Carson and look around the room, recognizing the emergency signal. “Where is that coming from?”
Carson rolls to his side and spits blood into his hand. “Fucking hell. We just trampled and bled all over this crime scene.” He winces as he pulls his phone from his coat pocket. “Quinn’s going to fucking bench me for sure this time.”
“What’s coming from your phone?” My adrenaline is still pumping, my limbs quaking as the sudden concern for Sadie overtakes my need to pulverize Carson.
He shakes his head. “It’s a video. I don’t know—” He squints at the screen, his eye already starting to swell. “Shit. It’s a video of Avery.”
I get to my feet and stand behind Carson, my brother and this whole fucked-up room forgotten when I see the scene playing out on the screen. My stomach bottoms out.
Last night, Sadie whispered her secrets to me in the dark. In my arms, safe and sheltered, she told me about the physical dungeon that held her captive for days when she was young. About the man who stole her childhood. Who abducted and tortured her—the reason she fears chains, and touch…and herself.
She bared that secret in such descriptive detail, as if she was reliving every second. She trusted me so implicitly, that I listened—sick with fury—as she uncoiled every detail from her memory. I listened, unable not to see her words through my own eyes.
Now, looking at Carson’s phone, it’s as if I’m watching her memories play out. Hearing her pain all over again in surround sound as Avery’s screams bleed from the speakers.
The woman on the screen—Avery—is dressed in a pink tank top. Just like Sadie wore all those years ago. Her legs are naked and battered. Just the way Sadie was found. Even Avery’s hair is the same shade as Sadie’s dark tresses.
And the cane connecting with Avery’s back…
I shut my eyes against the image.
It’s nothing like what Sadie and I shared last night, as I endeavored to drive her demons away, giving her a piece of me and accepting her in turn. This is something evil. Vile. Pure and sinister. The abuse Avery’s suffering in that video is just that. Abuse. And her captor is the only one receiving.
I hear Carson scramble to stand. “Jesus Christ. Is this being sent to everyone?”
And like that, my eyes fly open and I’m grabbing the device out of his hand.
